'The Lions of Little Rock' by Kristin Levine

Mary Harris RussellSpecial to Tribune Newspapers

'The Lions of Little Rock'By Kristin LevinePutnam, $16.99, ages 11-14

This book begins in 1958, a year later than the iconic integration events at Central High School. The governor has closed all the high schools. Kristin Levine offers not historical overview but a first-person narration by a white middle-schooler, Marlee, whose high-school sister is sent to live with Grandma in Pine Bluff and whose teacher parents argue about what's best. Speaking out — the title's meaning emerges slowly — is the larger theme, especially for Marlee, who's almost mute at school. She loves numbers, but as her math teacher says late in the book, Marlee learns that "the world isn't an addition problem … but much more like an algebraic equation. With variables and changes, complicated and messy."